Dime (24 page)

I didn't know how to discuss it, though, and so even though a part of me hoped to see the librarian with the clacking necklace, another part of me was relieved she never showed up, covering for anybody.

*  *  *

I took notes and looked at pictures. Whenever there was a working computer, I put my name on the list to use it, so that I could search YouTube videos and websites. It wasn't that hard. If everything went fine, there wasn't that much to know. But all sorts of things could go wrong. The baby could come feet first or with the cord around its neck. Lollipop could bleed to death. I wasn't sure how a baby could get out of an eleven-year-old girl. It didn't make sense to begin with, even with a full-grown woman. And Lollipop was somewhere around seven months now. I needed an A in this. I couldn't fail.

I never actually failed a class before last year. Now I was getting Fs in English and math, both. I thought I would get called out by a guidance counselor, but it hadn't happened yet. My English teacher did keep me one day, though. It made me nervous, because I was scheduled for a party. Daddy was picking me up in the Escalade, and he would be furious if I was late.

“You're struggling in my class,” Mr. Davis told me. He was the color of a tree trunk at dusk—it made me think of down south—and his hair was shaved close to his head. “As you know, your tests have not gone well.” His round eyes made him seem surprised all the time, but nothing else about him seemed that way. Mostly he was calm and solid. Trevor said he used to be in the military. “And you haven't turned in homework assignments for a while.”

I glanced at the clock. Mr. Davis noticed. “Are you expected somewhere?”

“Yes.”

“I'm available after school for help. I stay an hour later Tuesdays and Thursdays for students to drop by.”

I nodded.

“I notice you're falling asleep in class frequently.”

“I'm sorry.”

His round eyes looked at me, seeing me, just a little bit the way I once thought Daddy used to see me. But I had been so stupid to think that. “You don't have to be sorry.” His voice was kind, but Daddy's had been too. “I'm just wondering if there's any way you might get more sleep at home.”

“Okay.”

“I would be happy to speak with your parents or parent or guardian, if that could help.”

I tried not to show panic. “I have to go. My boyfriend is waiting for me.”

He frowned and looked past me, then at me, then past me again. But he couldn't figure it out. So he excused me instead.

*  *  *

Lollipop was getting big enough to really notice, so not many men wanted her anymore. On the other hand, the ones who did were apparently paying top dollar.
Frogs,
Celie might say.
They all frogs to me.
It made me want to laugh and cry both at the same time, what Celie thought of men.

Lollipop was tired, and she said her legs jumped around at night. But she was proud. “I'm making all of us rich,” she boasted, patting her round belly.

We were in her hotel room, and I was trying to explain to her how she needed to breathe during contractions. She didn't want to listen.

“Daddy didn't want me to know, but that last date from Tuesday told me how much he paid.”

She wanted me to ask, but I couldn't. I could hardly look at her myself, much less think about her with a date. It was too messed up.

“Three thousand!” Lollipop shouted. “Three thousand!”

I guess she learned her numbers. “Lollipop, I don't care how much anybody paid for you. I have to get that baby out of you safely, and I need you to pay attention to me.”

“Stop worrying, Dime,” she pouted. “It's not going to be a big thing. I'll just go away when it's time.”

“You can't go away from a baby coming out of you!” I still didn't know if her ignorance was an act or not.

“You can go away from anything,” Lollipop said. “I do it all the time so that when it hurts, nothing hurts.”

“I don't know what you're talking about.” But I did. She was talking about what I imagined when I tapped on the gray brick, hoping for an escape route. Except I think what Lollipop was telling me was that she really knew how to make it work. How to go far away so that she wasn't feeling or thinking anything when her body was right there.

“If it's a boy, I'm going to name it Ray, after Ray, since I'll never see him again,” she said matter-of-factly. “And if it's a girl, I'm going to call her Rayelle after him too.” She thought for a second. “You think Daddy will put the baby in here with me? Or do you think he'll keep the baby back at the apartment?”

“I don't know, Lolly,” I told her. “I really don't know.”

*  *  *

Fake snow and candy canes were up on the walls at school. In the front lobby, just past the metal detectors, they put up a plastic Christmas tree. Two days later it was knocked over and half-crushed. TV commercials were filled with red and green and silver and gold and “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” and “Jingle Bells” and “The Little Drummer Boy.” The Puerto Rican man and the white woman pulled out books on Christmas and Hanukkah and Kwanzaa. I watched them set up the display the day I was studying breech births for the fourth time. My librarian showed up again, her fingernails freshly silver with green ribbons painted perfectly on each thumbnail. She had no idea I was on my third reading of
The Color Purple
. Or that I had even looked at it yet.

“I hope you'll discuss it with me the next time we cross paths,” she said. “It really is challenging.”

I nodded.

Daddy bought us Christmas-colored bras and panties, and Brandy got a new coat, red on the outside and black lining on the inside. Lollipop didn't get one because she wasn't allowed out. Three different dates gave me red-and-white-striped candy canes.

Then L.A. came back. Wearing a new sweater jacket that went to her knees. I'd forgotten about the gap in her mouth.

She decided to hang tinsel all over the apartment within an hour of walking in the door, dragging Lollipop's pink and white suitcases behind her. “It is slow down there.” She poked her tongue through her gap. “I mean, slow.”

“What are those Russian girls like?” Brandy asked.

I wanted to know why she was back. Was it just for Christmas? Did Daddy miss her?

“Slow.” She pulled out another piece of tape and attached her green tinsel to the top of the TV. “We going to switch,” she said. “After the baby come, you going down south and I'm staying up here.”

“Yeah, but until the baby come, you working the street with me,” Brandy said.

“I'm not working no track.” L.A. twisted the tinsel so that it curled around the edges of the TV, all the way around. The locks turned, and Daddy walked in as L.A. kept talking. “I'm doing outcalls and parties. Daddy say Christmas season more profitable up here than down south. If I bring home a certain Christmas quota, I'm getting a new tooth.”

“Who say you getting a new tooth?” Daddy asked. He hung up his new black-and-brown coat—Brandy said it was
shearling
—and then thumbed his phone without looking at us as he walked to the couch.

“You getting it for me,” L.A. said. “Don't play like you ain't.”

“How much does a new tooth cost?” Brandy asked.

“More than you make,” L.A. said.

Daddy ignored them, tapping his phone fast. I wondered if he was texting Eagle. And I wondered what a new tooth cost. A hundred dollars? A thousand? Why didn't Daddy just get her a new tooth right away, because—except for the true freaks—wouldn't it likely turn off most dates?

“Dime, get me a beer,” Daddy said.

I went to the kitchen to get a forty. When I came back and handed it to him, he pulled me down onto his lap. “You studying hard?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Good,” he said. “We all counting on you.”

*  *  *

The one they called Dime didn't see it coming.
That's how Truth would begin this next part.
She thought she had grown up enough
by now and knew enough by now not to be surprised by anything anymore. Not by Daddy cooking the household's Christmas Eve turkey himself. Not by Daddy ordering them all to work Christmas Day. Dime was sure nothing would ever surprise her again. But she was wrong.

*  *  *

Daddy was home when I came back from the library. He was in the best mood I'd ever seen him in. If I didn't know better, I might even think he was drunk or high. Instead of telling me to hurry up and change, he took me into his room, tossed me onto his bed, and got himself naked in two seconds. His new scar bumped a short line on his chest. His muscles were tight and his shoulders bulged. He was standing up straight—every part of him—grinning.

“Just had me a conversation with Uncle Ray.” He dragged me down the bed by my ankles. “You know what you doing birthing that baby, right?”

My bottom was at the bed's edge, so I lifted my hips. “Yes.” Lollipop had never been to the clinic. What if she had high blood pressure? What if she had gestational diabetes? What if the baby was a boy, and Uncle Ray didn't want to buy a boy? I guess that was Daddy's problem. Or maybe Uncle Ray did want to buy a boy.

“Ain't nobody seen you reading about it?” He wiggled my jeans down and then tugged them off.

“Nobody knows,” I said. I was more used to pretending now, plus I knew he knew I was scared about the baby, so it was okay if I didn't pretend as well as I usually tried.

He was in a hurry, and it was over fast. He dressed right away. “I'm out,” he told me. “You stay. I'm a be back in a while. Take you a shower and wait for me clean.”

“What about work?” I asked. “What about my quota?”

He flashed his
D
. “You getting a little vacation this afternoon.” He smiled. “Business booming.”

He hadn't taken me twice in the same day since before down south. I wished I hadn't been the only one home. If L.A. had been here, he probably would have taken her instead of me. I had to hope that when he came back, he would want it fast again so it would be over quickly. I listened to him leave, to the locks on the door clicking into place. Then I lay there, wondering how much time I had. It was strange not to have somewhere to go, something to do. I was just about to get out of the bed and get into the shower, when I heard the locks again. I thought it was Daddy, forgetting something, and I almost called out. But it wasn't Daddy. It was L.A. and Eagle.

“Whippet got the spot set,” L.A. said. I heard her walk to the refrigerator and pull something out. “Philadelphia.”

“I do not trust Whippet.” I heard Eagle scrape a kitchen chair as he sat down.

“Well, he got the spot set.” L.A. sucked her teeth. “Anyways, I don't trust you.”

“I have buyer,” Eagle said, in an impatient tone, as if he had said it lots of times.

“How do I know you ain't playing me?”

There was a silence. Then L.A. sucked her teeth again. “Lollipop's people going to pay forty grand for a baby?”

“Yes.”

“So that what you and Daddy been planning? To sell the baby back down south? To her uncle Ray or whoever?”

Eagle must have nodded.

“But you and me and Whippet. We selling it to someone different?”

“Not so much money,” Eagle said. “Not so much like from Raymond. But mine people disappear. Impossible to find after. Safe.”

“How much I'm a get?”

“We divide. Whippet. You. Me. Seven. Eight thousand.”

“Each?” L.A. asked. “Or we got to split that?”

“I tell you many time,” Eagle said. “Each.” He must have handed her his phone. “Call. Make plan.”

“You sure Daddy not coming back here?”

“He bring date to little girl. We have hour.”

“What is your people doing buying a baby anyways?”

I didn't hear Eagle answer.

“What people buy babies for?”

Eagle still didn't say anything.

“Eight thousand?” L.A. said.

“Seven. Eight.” Then Eagle sounded impatient. “Make call.”

I heard silence. And then I heard L.A. talking. “It's me. Yo. He right here. You still got the spot set? We got a buyer. Uh-huh. Yeah.”

I didn't move inside the satin sheets. I tried not to breathe. I tried to stop my heart from pounding so loud.

Eagle and L.A. left.

What? What? What? What? What? What?

Daddy came back.

“Why you ain't showered?” he asked me.

I couldn't answer. I couldn't move.

“I told you get clean,” Daddy said.

“I feel sick,” I whispered.

He kicked his door shut and flashed his
D
. “You lucky I'm in a good mood.” He dropped his pants. “Try this,” he said. “This make you feel better.”

*  *  *

Dime used to be foolish,
Truth would write,
simple even. But she had learned a lot in a short space of time.
He would pause, thinking about how I had grown up and become wise. Then he would continue.
I'm guessing that by now you understand what I will be asking you to do with this note and package.
If Truth were real, he would be so worried.
I'm almost finished,
Truth would add.
If you could just read all the way to the end. It would mean so much.

THAT SEEMS LIKE yesterday and also an entire lifetime. Nettie said it best in one of her letters to Celie:
Time moves slowly, but passes quickly.
Either way, the fact is that Lollipop could give birth any second. Brandy and I are supposedly prepared: I made Daddy buy sheets, extra-thick towels, straws, two fleece baby blankets. Soap and disinfectant wipes and gloves and formula and a box of diapers, and other things the books and websites said I'd need. It's all stored under the beds in the hotel.